Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Mali’s capital Bamako on Friday (November 8) in support of the country’s armed forces after more than 50 soldiers died in an attack on an army post in the north.
Fifty-three soldiers and one civilian were killed in Indelimane, Menaka region on November 1. It was the deadliest strike against Mali’s military in recent memory. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the strike which was one of the deadliest against the West African country’s military in recent memory.
The attack in Indelimane, Menaka region, on November 1 started with shellfire from heavily armed and unidentified men, a government spokesman said.On Friday (november 8), officials said soldiers had left the military outpost of Anderhaboucane, 85km from Menaka on Wednesday (November 6), fearing a similar attack. They said the soldiers complained that they did not have enough equipment to defeat this type of assailants.
The largely Saharan nation has been in turmoil since Tuareg separatists and allied jihadists took control of more than half the country in a rebellion in 2012, prompting French forces to intervene to push them back the following year.
A 2015 peace deal signed by Mali’s government and separatist groups has failed to end the violence. Islamists have also staged assaults on high-profile targets in the capital, Bamako, and in neighbouring Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.
